The company behind some major bike-share programs in cities like San Francisco, New York, and Chicago is reportedly close to an acquisition from ride-hailing app Lyft.
A report in The Information Friday says Lyft is closing in on a $250-million deal …
Category: bike sharing
This major US city just took a big step to curb bike litter
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Chicago is the first major American city to take a strong stance on keeping its sidewalks open and accessible instead of littered with discarded bicycles.
The city begins a six-month pilot program next week in an aim to keep litter from bicycle-share programs off city streets. Any service renting out bikes that don’t have bike stations — also known as “dockless” bikes — must make sure their vehicles have “lock-to” technology, which allows users to lock the bikes to a physical object, like a bike rack.
With this pilot, which starts in the South Side area, Chicago is preemptively sparing its sidewalks from bicycles left in the way. Cities like Dallas, San Diego, and San Francisco have been dealing with unregulated bike-shares that allow riders to leave self-locking bikes strewn around those cities. Chicago currently only offers Divvy for bike rentals; those are checked out from dock stations around the city, as with Citi Bike in New York or Ford GoBike in San Francisco. Read more…
More about Chicago, Bicycles, Bike Sharing, Dockless Bikes, and Tech
Uber rolls out new features for biking, car-sharing, and more
Uber is moving way beyond just ordering a car. The company announced a slew of new partnerships this week, including ones for an actual car-sharing service, biking, and now more ways to get around cities.
At an event in Washington, D.C., Uber CEO Dar…
NYC lifts ban on electric bikes, but hoverboards still illegal
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New York City is home to one of the biggest bike-sharing networks in the country, but until this week electric bicycles — regular bicycles with an electric motor to give rides a boost — were banned in the bustling city. The confusing ban has kept out bike-sharing companies and frustrated delivery workers.
On Tuesday, though, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that electric-assist bicycles, known as e-bikes, would be allowed to pedal through city streets. Any bikes that can travel faster than 20 mph aren’t allowed and hoverboards remain illegal.
More about New York City, Bike Sharing, E Bike, Tech, and Transportation
View More NYC lifts ban on electric bikes, but hoverboards still illegalNYC paves the way for pedal-assist bike-sharing
While dockless, electric bike-sharing programs have taken off in San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area, the same can’t be said for New York City, yet. Today, Mayor Bill de Blasio effectively paved the way for bike-sharing startups with pedal-assist functionality to hit the streets in a legal way. “As cycling continues to grow in […]
View More NYC paves the way for pedal-assist bike-sharingE-scooter company CEO wants to ‘Save Our Sidewalks’ from bike litter
Bird is flying into more cities, and as the electric scooter-share company spreads its wings, it wants to make sure it doesn’t destroy communities with its short-range vehicles.
Bird expanded from Southern California this week to San Francisco and Sa…
Chinese bike-sharing startup Ofo raises $866M in new financing led by Alibaba Group
Beijing-based bike-sharing startup Ofo has raised $866 million in new financing led by Alibaba Group to fuel its expensive competition with Mobike, which is backed by Tencent, one of Alibaba’s biggest rivals. Ofo and Mobike are the two largest bike-sharing companies in China. Read More
GoBee Bike throws in the towel in France
Bike-sharing startup GoBee Bike is giving up and shutting down in all French cities where it operates. GoBee Bike operates just like Chinese giants Ofo and Mobike. You open the app, you find a bike on the map and you unlock it by scanning a QR code. Once you’re done, you lock it again and leave it there — there’s no dock. And yet, the startup is blaming vandalism and says… Read More
Here’s what it’s like to ride the brand new Uber Bike
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Your journey to the office is probably already on wheels — but you could power those wheels, with a small push from an electric motor on Uber’s new bike-share option.
Uber partnered with Jump Bikes in San Francisco to offer an electric-motor assisted ride to users for the next nine months (and pull in the bike commuters to conquer even more of the commuting market) — so I gave it a spin.
After signing up for the waitlist, I got access to the newest option on the Uber app: Uber Bike. Instead of little cars scurrying around the screen I was bombarded with all the nearby bikes and each one’s distance from me. I had plenty of options: Read more…
More about Uber, Jump, Bike Sharing, Tech, and Transportation
LimeBike is also getting into the e-scooter game
On the heels of LimeBike’s expansion into e-bikes, as well as competitor Spin’s expansion into Razor-like electric scooters, LimeBike is unveiling its own take on e-scooters. LimeBike is also officially deploying its e-bikes in Seattle. “This is an exciting and competitive landscape,” LimeBike CEO Toby Sun told TechCrunch. “What you are beginning to see is that… Read More
Uber now lets you rent bikes in this hilly city
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It’s like Uber, but for bicycles.
On Wednesday, Uber announced a San Francisco pilot project that lets people rent electric pedal-assist bikes.
Instead of calling a black car or shared carpool, select Uber users will have the option starting next week to reserve a bike from Jump Bikes. The electric bike has a small electric motor powered by a rechargeable battery. It senses when you’re struggling on a hill and gives you a boost, but you still have to power the bicycle with your legs — it’s not a motorcycle. Read more…
More about Transportation, Uber, Electric Bike, Bike Sharing, and Jump Bikes
Uber is piloting a bike-sharing service with JUMP
Uber is launching a bike-sharing service next week in partnership with JUMP, a startup that recently received the first and only permit to operate dockless bike-sharing in San Francisco. JUMP’s contract with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency enables it to launch 250 of its dockless, electric bikes in San Francisco. After the first nine months of the program, the SFMTA… Read More